Duty of The Crown To Maintain Peace
Maintenance of the Queen's peace is one of the duties of the Crown, carried out via the Royal Prerogative. Though this power remains the Crown's, through convention it is exercised by the Queen-in-Council; that is, the executive, or, the sovereign acting on the advice of her ministers of the Crown.
The Crown can be held responsible should it fail in upholding its duty to maintain peace; this was the justification for the Riot Act and subsequent legislation throughout the British Empire. Where civil authorities had declared the Queen's peace as breached (i.e. there was a state of riot), there was a change in the rules: the authorities (whether police, army, or militia providing military aid to the civil power) could shoot and kill the leaders of the riot, and generally take severe action against anyone who was rioting. The counterbalance was that the Crown was responsible for damage caused by the riot, having failed in its duty to preserve the peace. Into the present day, the criminal offence of rioting can only be prosecuted as such with the consent of the Attorney-General (the Queen's legal officer). If disorder does occur but is not prosecuted as rioting, it is officially called a civil disturbance, as deeming it a riot transfers the liability of insurers for any damages or injury occurring from such an event to the local police, which, as they are officers of the Crown, makes the Crown liable to pay.
Read more about this topic: Queen's Peace
Famous quotes containing the words duty of the, duty of, duty, crown, maintain and/or peace:
“If there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“no thread
Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
Its venom of renown, and on your head
No crown is simpler than the simple hair.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“He looked as if he wished to rive new war material out of the wombs of the mothers.”
—Anonymous. Quoted in Ellen Key, War, Peace and the Future, ch. 9 (1916)